Google Not Responsible for Policing YouTube Content: French Court

Google has no obligation to “police (YouTube) content before it is put online as long as it informs users that posting television shows, music videos, concerts or advertisements without prior consent of the owner is not allowed.” So says a judgment by a court in France in the case of TF1, France’s largest television network, against YouTube and parent company Google.

TF1 sued YouTube and Dailymotion back in 2008 for intellectual property abuse, seeking damages for alleged copyright infringement on sports and movies that were uploaded to YouTube by users. Instead of the €141 million judgment they sought, TF1 was ordered to pay $800,000 towards Google’s legal fees.

YouTube is still responsible for removing content in violation of copyright once the copyright owner reports it. However, the French judgment takes the onus off video sharing sites like YouTube to prevent pirated content from being displayed in the first place. The Dailymotion verdict is due in September.

Stateside, a U.S. second circuit court of appeals panel overturned a judgment in YouTube’s favor in April this year, reinstating a $1 billion lawsuit against Google by media giant Viacom. “All that is left of the Viacom lawsuit that began as a wholesale attack on YouTube is a dispute over a tiny percentage of videos long ago removed from YouTube,” Google told Bloomberg in an emailed statement. “Nothing in this decision impacts the way YouTube is operating.”

Google recently commissioned a top first amendment rights academic to make their case that they are a media outlet, much like the New York Times, and are therefore protected by freedom of speech law. It seemed a preemptive move by a company with every reason to believe such a stance is going to prove useful in the near future.

As they continue to toe the line between search engine and publisher/content curator with the launch of Knowledge Graph features, Google may well expect further legal battles and complaints from copyright holders and creators of original content.

Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.